“For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.” Isaiah 9:16

Leaders matter. It mattered to ancient Israel just as it mattered to 1930’s Germany. Leaders in both lands led their people to destruction. Those, however, are both easy and notorious to spot as well worn examples of leader failure. A bit more subtle is the question of our own personal leadership.​For leaders, you represent a sphere of influence and within those spheres are human beings that are either under our direct authority or follow our lead out of respect. Like it or not, we are being watched. We lead people someplace out of our DNA for leadership. The question is “where”?

The big idea of working with a group of Kingdom people towards making a city one of salt and light is that we would stop our random meandering and focus on God’s specificity for our being placed in a city at this moment in history. As Christians, we are “sent people” for a specific purpose having something to do with the “shalom” of this city – its “well-being”. People should rejoice somehow for our bringing loving leadership to this city. Our unity and our love should be an inspiration.

Unity of purpose and the focused exercise of love, however, require a degree of both critical thinking with one another and prayerful tutelage from God. Both of which are functions of a time commitment. It’s hard to take a compass heading from God while we careen through life in the fast lane. There is truly only one way to get direction from God and that is from spending time with Him.

Don’t live in a reactive mode with life’s events passing by. It should not have to be like that. It is your choice. We make time for what we deem important. A simple action step toward pushing the reset button would be to get together with a trusted friend and ask a few probing questions of one another. Those questions might look like:

What kind of time am I spending with God every day?

Am I involved with any peers that have permission to speak truth into my life?

How might I be purposeful about fulfilling God’s purpose for me as a leader in this city?

We only go around once, as the saying goes, find someone to help you do so with excellence, purity, and an eternal purpose.